Lack of sleep a daily problem for children

MOST people will have had that annoying experience of fighting the overwhelming urge to sleep at the most inopportune moments.

This could be at work after a sleepless night or at a concert or the cinema if it has been a busy day.

But what kind of impact does lack of sleep have on a child at school?

According to a recent survey by The Sleep Council, a lack of sleep among primary school children is having a “devastating” effect in schools, with nine out of 10 teachers complaining that pupils are so tired they are unable to pay attention in class.

More than a third said lack of sleep among youngsters is a daily problem for them.

But what is to blame?

According to the report, nine out of 10 teachers also felt there were too many distractions in children’s bedrooms . . . such as games machines and TVs. Another popular belief was that parents are not strict enough about enforcing bedtimes.

The poll of 250 primary school teachers was conducted for The Sleep Council which is launching its first ever sleep awareness project in schools, entitled Better Brains with More Sleep, as part of National Bed Month (March).

It aims to teach primary school children the importance of a good night’s sleep and the factors that can affect it.

“As part of our project we wanted to establish just how much of an issue lack of sleep has become among young school children,” said Jessica Alexander of The Sleep Council. “Even we have been taken aback by the sheer scale of the problem.”

In Northamptonshire, the problem highlighted in this report has also been seen in primary school classrooms.

Bob Buntine, headteacher at Delapre Primary School, said he has a good working relationship with parents of pupils at his school but added: “I do see one or two children who are sleep deprived. The cause is that the computer or games console is in the bedroom and the children will try to use that after they go to bed.

“If that happens I talk to the parents, the parents might not even know.

“But children should never be alone in a bedroom anyway with a computer. Internet safety is a big concern. Children should never be left alone with their computers as they will believe what they see and hear. It can be dangerous.”

He continued: “It is a very difficult one because the fact often heard is that children need a minimum of eight hours sleep a day, some need more and some need less. There is no one answer. Children can go to bed and read for three hours and be fresh the next morning. I was brought up thinking I needed eight hours sleep or I would be ill.”

He added: “It has been more of a problem in the last 10 years but we are now more aware of internet safety so it is becoming less.”

Commenting on the survey results, Siôn Humphreys, Policy Advisor for the National Association of Headteachers said: “Schools cannot succeed without effective partnerships with the home. A tired and irritable child will not thrive, particularly in the active and pacey modern classroom. NAHT is particularly concerned about the still small but rising number of pupils who stay up late engaged in online gaming.”

But Dr Catti Moss, GP at Guilsborough Surgery, said that anxiety can be more of a threat to children’s sleep than electronic gadgets.

She said: “There is a great variation in sleep needs. Some need an enormous amount of sleep and some need very little. In general a child can’t keep themselves awake if they need to go to sleep and in general parents want children to sleep more than they need . . . although that is not true in every case.

“We are more likely to be dealing with parents who are worried that their children are not getting enough sleep.”

She added: “The biggest thing preventing sleep is anxiety and children do get anxious. I think young people do have a very tough time, there are a lot of expectations from their peers and they have a lot of things bombarding them from all sides.”

This website and its associated newspaper adheres to the Independent Press Standards Organisation's Editors' Code of Practice.
If you have a complaint about editorial content which relates to inaccuracy or intrusion, then contact the
Editor by clicking here.

If you remain dissatisfied with the response provided then you can contact the IPSO by
clicking here.

Northampton Chronicle and Echo provides news, events and sport features from the Northampton area. For the best up to date information relating to Northampton and the surrounding areas visit us at Northampton Chronicle and Echo regularly or bookmark this page.

For you to enjoy all the features of this website Northampton Chronicle and Echo requires permission to use cookies.

Find Out More ▼

What is a Cookie?

What is a Flash Cookie?

Can I opt out of receiving Cookies?

About our Cookies

Cookies are small data files which are sent to your browser (Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome etc) from a website you visit. They are stored on your electronic device.

This is a type of cookie which is collected by Adobe Flash media player (it is also called a Local Shared Object) - a piece of software you may already have on your electronic device to help you watch online videos and listen to podcasts.

Yes there are a number of options available, you can set your browser either to reject all cookies, to allow only "trusted" sites to set them, or to only accept them from the site you are currently on.

However, please note - if you block/delete all cookies, some features of our websites, such as remembering your login details, or the site branding for your local newspaper may not function as a result.

The types of cookies we, our ad network and technology partners use are listed below:

Revenue Science ►

A tool used by some of our advertisers to target adverts to you based on pages you have visited in the past. To opt out of this type of targeting you can visit the 'Your Online Choices' website by clicking here.

Google Ads ►

Our sites contain advertising from Google; these use cookies to ensure you get adverts relevant to you. You can tailor the type of ads you receive by visiting here or to opt out of this type of targeting you can visit the 'Your Online Choices' website by clicking here.

Digital Analytics ►

This is used to help us identify unique visitors to our websites. This data is anonymous and we cannot use this to uniquely identify individuals and their usage of the sites.

Dart for Publishers ►

This comes from our ad serving technology and is used to track how many times you have seen a particular ad on our sites, so that you don't just see one advert but an even spread. This information is not used by us for any other type of audience recording or monitoring.

ComScore ►

ComScore monitor and externally verify our site traffic data for use within the advertising industry. Any data collected is anonymous statistical data and cannot be traced back to an individual.

Local Targeting ►

Our Classified websites (Photos, Motors, Jobs and Property Today) use cookies to ensure you get the correct local newspaper branding and content when you visit them. These cookies store no personally identifiable information.

Grapeshot ►

We use Grapeshot as a contextual targeting technology, allowing us to create custom groups of stories outside out of our usual site navigation. Grapeshot stores the categories of story you have been exposed to. Their privacy policy and opt out option can be accessed here.

Subscriptions Online ►

Our partner for Newspaper subscriptions online stores data from the forms you complete in these to increase the usability of the site and enhance user experience.

Add This ►

Add This provides the social networking widget found in many of our pages. This widget gives you the tools to bookmark our websites, blog, share, tweet and email our content to a friend.